A cutabove: PGA Championship promises to thrill

The European Tour is in Wentworth this week for its flagship event — the BMW PGA Championship — and everything points to a cracker of a tournament.

An amazing field has descended on the beautiful London suburb of Virginia Waters, led by the top three ranked players in the world — Rory McIlroy, Luke Donald and Lee Westwood. All eyes will once again be on the famous West course when play gets underway today. If you have been following the game for the past couple of years, I am sure you would have heard of all the criticism that followed the Ernie Els' 2010 redesign of the 1926 Harry Colt layout.

It's not easy to improve upon something as legendary as the West course of Wentworth. Ernie worked on it with full honesty, guided by the desires of the owners of the golf course to make it tougher. In trying to do that, some of the changes took away the drama that is always associated with the course.

The beauty of the West course is that it is an ultimate risk and reward layout, especially the closing holes. If you are playing well and are aggressive, you can make birdies and eagles, and if you are not 100 per cent committed to your shots and make the slightest of mistakes, it can bite you very badly. I sincerely hope all the criticism is a thing of past and the tweaking Ernie and his team have done over the past two years will restore the golf course to its original glory.

I really like some of the changes this year, including the fact that the 12th hole is back as a par-five again, and that the right fairway bunker on the 18th hole has been removed. These two changes are surely going to lower the scores, which is something that the fans enjoy.

An added element of excitement is the ongoing ding-dong battle for world No 1 spot between Rory and Luke. I believe Luke's got to win the tournament to get back to No. 1 and, considering he has done such things in the past, he is going to be heavily favoured to retain his title.

The weather so far this week has been absolutely gorgeous and the forecast is looking good as well. Hopefully the setting will spur me on to a good finish this week. I have had a couple of weeks of break and am now heading for a very busy period, in which I will play almost every week for the next two months.

Jeev Milkha Singh is a three-time champion on the European Tour